(severed)
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: "I'm not brave the way you are, Mikasa," Sasha tells her wanly, a sorrowful smile crossing her lips as she hesitantly raises her eyes to meet lovely obsidian ones. "But I didn't want to stop fighting titans either. Not like this." Ambiguously one-sided Mikasa/Sasha femslash. Piece of crap.


**Author's Note: Timing is ambiguous/canon divergent because I am a pointless piece of shit. This fic is also a piece of a shit. A disjointed, worthless, bland piece of shitty mediocrity that lacks any grain of substance. Very possibly influenced by my eating a week-and-a-half old slice of pizza that tasted like fridge. **

* * *

The first time Mikasa saves Sasha, she saves all of her and Sasha falls to her very knees before her, tears of bottomless gratitude and fading terror falling freely from her honeycomb pools. She grips Mikasa's waist and tips her sniveling head back, breath heaving erratically as Mikasa stands before her in all of her deadly poise, expression as phlegmatic as ever as she simply asks,

"Are you hurt, Sasha?"

"N-No," Sasha stammers quickly in a strange reedy voice scarcely recognizable as her own. "I'm not! Thanks to you! Oh thank you, Mikasa, thank you!"

Before this Sasha thought Christa Lenz was a goddess; Christa with her corona of compassion and heart big enough to scale the walls and serve as a proxy for Ymir's spade, but she was wrong. It is Mikasa who is a goddess, Mikasa in her swift lethality and statuesque stature of gunmetal and ice. She is an entity of precision and ferocity, a true beauty of battle, and from then on Sasha quietly worships her as such.

The second time Mikasa saves Sasha she almost doesn't, and she does not save all of her. There is a harsh, cacophonous_ RIP_/_CRUNCH_ as the titan bites off Sasha's left leg. The pain that follows is as abrupt as the crack of a cannon and all consuming. Sasha screams, screams, screams, and can't even feel herself screaming because the pain is all that there is.

Sasha's vision crackles and pops and grays at the corners, agony shooting up the messy, pulpy remains of her thigh and exploding in every nerve. She doesn't notice when Mikasa shears the titan's neck and slews around to seize her by the waist. The bitter, splitting pain is an unbearable hurricane and she's still screaming her head off when Mikasa descends and lays her out on her back.

Her head swims dizzily, thoughtlessly, all caught in a searing blur as massive torrents of crimson jet fourth from her hacked limb. All of a sudden Levi is there and Connie is there, but her leg isn't and this white hot anguish refuses to abate. Mikasa rips her scarf from her neck and begins binding the ragged, sloppy stump of Sasha's leg. Sasha doesn't feel herself struggling, can't feel anything over this all encompassing wildfire of pain, but she's thrashing like a trout yanked out of water.

"Hold her down, Ackerman!"

Mikasa does as she's commanded and straddles Sasha's waist, her iron fingers clamped around Sasha's wrists. She holds them behind her head and stares down at Sasha with her lips pursed, worry concealed behind the composure in her obsidian gaze.

Sasha registers this beyond the pain. Sasha registers this because she's wanted Mikasa on top of her for awhile now, she's yearned for Mikasa to come over her like the goddess she is and pin her to the ground. But she didn't want it to be like this. She wanted her clothes to be gone, not her leg, and she wanted Mikasa's brutally divine features to be glistening with just a sheen of perspiration, she didn't want them to be coated in viscous titan blood.

"Sasha," Mikasa says her name firmly. Then more urgently, eyes widening just a fraction; "Sasha!"

This is the last thing Sasha is aware of before her pain yields to shooting stars and a blanket of black.

** . . . **

Sasha cries when she wakes up. She cries because it hurts and she cries because she can't believe it and she cries because this changes everything. She cries and cries until her eyes are dry and nearly as swollen as the freshly stitched stump. She can't stop looking at it, swallowing down cotton knives to gawk at its grotesque bizarreness. It's still bandaged, but there isn't a single doubt in her mind that the bandages veil horrific scarring.

Phantom limb pains riddle her constantly, so violently throbbing it's nearly undeniable enough to trick her into thinking her leg is still there. Her parents are informed and come all the way down to the infirmary, but Sasha turns them away. A part of her wails to do so, a part of her wants to cling onto them like the frightened child this misfortune has made her feel like, but she doesn't want them to see her like this. Connie comes to visit and she lets him, but she can't bring herself to eat the precious loaf of cranberry-peanut bread he must've risked his neck stealing for her.

For the first time in her life she has no appetite.

It's only been three days, but it feels like an eternity. Sasha remembers how running laps for a pissed off Shadis felt like an eternity at the time too, but now she'll never ever run again. It breaks her heart. Her empty stomach ties itself in a mess of knots and her un-leg keeps on throbbing. She grabs the bedsheets in fists and tightens until she's sure her fingers are going to fracture, wondering if she's being selfish. She came back alive, after all. Isn't that more than most soldiers can ask for?

Her savior cames to visit on the fourth day. Mikasa shuts the door silently behind her and walks into the room with mild steps, lovely soot tresses bouncing slightly against her stoic face. Her presence is every bit as powerful in civilian clothes as it is in her military uniform. Sasha is embarrassed to be before her like this, smelling like tears and sweat and blood, her hair uncombed, hanging in greasy tangles rather than her trademark ponytail.

"Hey, Sasha," Mikasa greets simply. She takes a chair against the wall and starts to drag it over.

"No," Sasha tells her, throat rough from too much sobbing and too little talking. "You can sit here." She pats the side of her bed and feels a pinprick of guilt for correcting a goddess.

"Oh." Mikasa nods and pushes the chair back, approaching and seating herself next to Sasha's stump, her own intact and leanly muscled legs hanging over the edge of the bed.

"I'm not brave the way you are, Mikasa," Sasha tells her wanly, a sorrowful smile crossing her lips as she hesitantly raises her eyes to meet lovely obsidian ones. "But I didn't want to stop fighting titans either. Not like this." Her vision clouds with mist before she can focus on Mikasa properly, more tears streaming down.

Much to Sasha's surprise, Mikasa embraces her. She pulls Sasha into her and holds her close, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her greasy head. "I'm sorry, Sasha," she breathes quietly, earnestly. Because no matter how godlike Sasha may see her as, Mikasa has always been and will always be human.

Sasha hiccups and wraps her shaking arms around Mikasa, burying her face into her breast. Sasha never would've taken Mikasa to be the type to comfort another, but here she is, holding Sasha securely as her fingers stroke down her messy bole-brown tresses. Sasha quakes and cries and Mikasa silently soothes until she has no more tears to give.

Her arms loosen then and Sasha sits back, hands on Mikasa's sturdy shoulders. "What am I going to do now?" she asks, voice a pleading whisper.

Mikasa wipes away her tear tracks with the end of her scarf and produces a handkerchief from her skirt pocket, proceeding to swipe the snot from her dribbling nose. "Survive," she answers, gently but as absolutely as though there is no other answer.

Sasha's breath catches. Mikasa turns her attention to a paper bag she's brought with her that Sasha hadn't even noticed. She pulls it up from the floor and takes something out of it, something wrapped in another handkerchief and shaped like a rock. It's still a little warm when Mikasa places it in Sasha's hands. Sasha blinks, bemused, and unfolds the cloth.

It's a potato.

"Survive," Mikasa repeats steadily. It leaves her lips like an order.

Sasha takes a bite out of the potato. It's the first food she's tasted since her ghastly amputation and it's too cold for her liking. She eats it anyway, nodding. "Thank you, Mikasa."

"Your parents haven't returned to their village. They're still here, wanting to see you. They're worried. You shouldn't make them wait, Sasha."

There is an undercurrent of reprimanding to Mikasa's tone and Sasha recalls that Mikasa doesn't have parents. No, all Mikasa has is Eren and Armin (she could have Sasha too if she wanted to, she could have Sasha forever and ever and ever; missing a leg or not, Sasha will jump at the chance to belong to her).

"You're right," Sasha murmurs, potato crumbs smattering her lips as they curl into a feeble smile. "When you leave, will you tell them that for me? Will you tell them that they can come see me?"

"Yes."

Mikasa stays until Sasha finishes her potato, unsmiling but not unkind. She holds one of Sasha's hands loosely, fingers tucking over and warmly pressing to the inside of her palm. Sasha would like to intertwine them with hers, but now is not the time. It will probably never be the time.

Before Mikasa departs, she kisses Sasha's forehead. Her lips are like moist silk and her hair tickles Sasha's tan cheeks.

"Goodbye."

"See you later."

She watches Mikasa's back disappear behind the closing door and hopes it's true.


End file.
